“Enough of this Note taking nonsense,” Evie said in frustration. “I’m going to do the speech recognition thing that Bill has been bending my ear about.
“You can try the one Google has for free,” Linette suggested. “It’s called Google Cloud Speech API.
“All right.”
“You also have Microsoft Bing Voice Recognition and IBM Speech to Text.”
“I’ll do some research on all three and then make my decision. I’m tired of taking notes by long and shorthand.”
“Why don’t you record your notes?”
“And what do I do after I’ve recorded them? Who will transcribe them?”
“Oh. Get a secretary then.”
“You know I don’t have a good history with secretaries. I find them very irritating.”
“What about a male secretary?”
“A male secretary?”
“Why not?”
“Are they any good?”
“Of course. My sister has one and he’s extremely efficient.”
“I didn’t even know that male secretaries existed.”
“They do. They are more common than you think. Diplomats and Prime Ministers have male secretaries. Just recently I read an article on line and was written by a young male secretary. He said that when he tells people that he’s a secretary, it makes them uncomfortable.”
“I bet. Usually women are secretaries and men are assistants.”
“That’s reverse gender bias. There’s no reason why a man shouldn’t be a secretary any more than a woman shouldn’t be an administrative assistant or a manager.”
“I think you’re on to something, Linette.”
“So, does this mean that you’re going to hire a man to be your secretary?”
“Yes!” And she did.
He turned out to be the best secretary she ever had. His name was Rowan and he was 25, the same age as her daughter, Carol. They worked extremely well together and she quickly grew very attached to him. He was like the son she and her husband, Brock always wanted but never had.
And he was perfectly happy working there although he was constantly asked him, “What are your plans for the future?” Apparently people assumed that he couldn’t possibly want to be a secretary for the rest of his working life but he assured Evie, “I love working here and with you.”
Evie started a trend. Other women in managerial positions were hiring men to be their secretaries. This, of course, pleased Rowan who believed that “like women, men should also be encouraged to live and work in jobs for which they are qualified, regardless of gender stereotypes.”
Source: Hartford Courant
Notes to Women 